Post-WrestleMania 29 WWE Raw Open Discussion Thread 4/8/13

Tonight on the post-WrestleMania 29 edition of the WWE Raw open discussion thread:

With John Cena the new WWE Champion, Miz new Intercontinental Champion and Triple H’s career still alive, what will unfold less than 24 hours after WrestleMania? Here are five things to look for on tonight’s Raw at 8/7 CT on USA Network. (via WWE.com)

Our five-point preview, as always:

1. They always say “anything can happen on Raw,” but post-WrestleMania Raws are when that’s actually true. I’m hoping tonight will be full of shocks, surprises, fun new directions and characters. I also hope that my flight gets me to the Austin airport in time to actually see it this year.

2. Tonight’s main-event is Rhodes Scholars and the Bella Twins against Hoss Funk and the Funkadactyls, prefaced with a lengthy in-ring apology, or we riot.

4. John Cena will deliver an intense, often comic promo about how much the WWE Championship means to him. Or, I don’t know, he’ll throw it in the garbage and bring back the spinner title. Or he’ll rub the WWE Championship against his asshole until Rock storms out and demands a rematch, assuming Rock watches Raw. One of those things will happen.

As always, the ten best comments from tonight’s WWE Raw open discussion thread will be featured in Wednesday morning’s Best and Worst of Raw report. Tuesday is the Mania report, for the record. Anyway, to nominate a comment for top 10 consideration, please respond to it with a +1.

Enjoy the show, everybody. Wish me luck getting home in time to see the USA Guy debut.

Oboy mentioned that Cena was having fun last night. I definitely see it, but I guess what still bothers me about it is even when Cena has a good line, it’s agony to get there.

The dancing bit was the perfect example of this: he obviously realized it would be cheeky (and right for that particular crowd) to reference a “heel turn” on mic at the top of Raw. And out of context, it totally was: but he has to go on a batshit Cena tangent to get there. And so as I sit there wondering what the fuck he was doing, I’m ultimately left with the impression that it wasn’t worth the effort.

I also thought he was having fun throughout the night. His good mood was apparent and a little infectious. Cena is not my favorite and yeah, you had to wade through a lot of derp to get to the stuff I thought was fun, but I am glad he still gets excited about being the champion even though he can ostensibly be champ whenever he wants, probably.

Kudos to WWE on the Ziggler win. I thought they had waited far too long, but all of the false calls and speculation actually paid off: even as he walked down to the ring, I wondered how they’d write around him actually cashing in. So the moment when Roberts announced it was as exciting as the win itself. Really well done.

I work for a after school reading program in Denver and the School District is closed tomorrow due to weather so I’ve got the day off. And I haven’t slept and holy S that show was great!

I hope the Shield thing from tonight means ‘Taker sticks around for Extreme Rules for a trios match. He wouldn’t net to do much in that environment aside from an Old School and a chokeslam or two. And it would make the most sense (and wouldn’t cost the Shield any heat if it was framed this way) that the Power of the Deadman was the only thing that could beat the Shield. My fantasy would be that the match breaks down at the end and Bryan submits Rollins, and is then ceremonially welcomed into the family and becomes the unlikely carrier of ‘Taker and Kane’s legacy after they retire. Imagine 5 or 6 years from now on a Raw Anniversary show and D-Bry is surrounded in the middle of the ring about to be jumped by an invading heel faction and the lights go out and the GONG hits!

OR, the insanely juicy possibility that ‘Taker puts over the Shield, what then could stop them?

They could go full-on invasion and help with the long stretch of doldrums between ‘Mania and the Rumble if they “take over” the company and run Raw and even “ghetto-ize” the “establishment” Superstars, until they rise up and overcome.

I’ve always thought it was wierd when the IWC would simultaneously claim that WWE hasn’t been building new stars while insisting that no one is over enough to fill Cena’s shoes should he turn heel, or implying that this is such a hard thing to do. I wasn’t watching during the Nexus invasion angle, but it seems like WWE made the same mistake the did with the WCW invasion angle and jobbed out the invaders until they weren’t a believable threat anymore. To me the answer is obvious: just put over the new guys. I understand Vince has a certain mentality that wrestlers coming from the indie scene or were popular and successful in other promotions need to “prove themselves” but this approach has had more negative impact on business than the “pushing muscle-bound hosses that can’t wrestle” has had positive impact. The WCW invasion could’ve been successful even without the big name WCW guys that sat out with guaranteed contracts if they capitalized on RVD’s popularity. The Nexus invasion would’ve been awesome if Wade Barrett cheated and beat Cena for the WWE title within a couple weeks of rebelling.

Fans are now anxious to see the Shield in other incarnations and even continuing on their rampage, but they could break up and be compelling characters on their and would have spots, and would Fandango’s reaction on Raw have been much less raucous if Jericho had beaten him in less than 5 minutes at ‘Mania?

As much as promos and skits and ACTING(!) are important to success in the WWE, the only real tried-and-true to put over new wrestlers is by having them win matches over established Superstars who aren’t diminished in stature by the occasional loss. WWE has more than enough of the latter, I hope last night’s RAW is an indication that they’re ready to exploit the former.

I come from Online Onslaught back in the day, so I have a more than ample dislike of Randy Orton (and I missed his 2010 run where he apparently wasn’t totally awful), and I’ve learned from Brandon and Matt Fowler a pretty standard dislike of Sheamus’s pandering, toothless face incarnation, so I support all of this crowd’s antics tonight.

I didn’t really catch the “We Are Awesome” chants but I understand people thinking that was douchey, but to be fair, watching from home, the crowd really were the most entertaining part of that match. WWE trotted out 2 played-out, bland babyfaces to determine which one would go on to gain nothing from a victory over the largely directionless Big Show at the next PPV, and those fans made something of it, and WWE played along.

There’s a vid on youtube of Cena after the show was over talking to the crowd and praising them for their engagement. As much as I couldn’t give 2 shits about Orton being dismissively wanked at by 20,000 people sick of 10 years of his ass-hatted restholdery, at least this was a more constructive display of WWE ennui than booing Cena in a Make-A-Wish campaign or reducing Maria Menounos to tears.

Lol at HHH bumping hard working youths off a card to extend his “brawl” borefest Sunday. Then coming back to Smackdown for his talking points. I know people are like “This Guy, SMH”

But when Cena breaks the fourth wall its awesome. You can see how much fun he’s having whether he’s SuperCena or fighting off Embracing the Hate. Thats all people want out of him, just be real. Dont be overly “I gotta fight adversity” guy, its annoying.

And The Zig Zag man! That Cash in was so special with that crowd man. And the drama of Del Rio fighting back was a great touch. Reminded me of years ago when Rey or Benoit won. It connected with the fans. Unlike WM when Cena wins and him and Dwayne had a Pow Wow for 3minutes in the ring.

Fantastic Raw! It was almost like the WWE new Raw would be 100:1 IWC to regular fan ratio and decided to give them almost everything they wanted.

Worsts:
1) Triple H’s ego being so fragile that he decided to ‘return’ on Smackdown. Coward’s way out Hunter.

2) The fans for the first half of the show. I thought the fans were a little too full of themselves the first half of the show, culminating in the “we are awesome” chant. That was some TNA shit right there.

3) WWE not selling Dolph Ziggler winning the title. Where was all his “in case you missed it” videos that are continually jammed down our throats on the reg?

Bests:

A) ZIGGLER IS THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION! WOOO!

B) John Cena handled the very hostile crowd with class and won many over at the end. C’MON IWC, when he does cool shit like dance when you’re singing Fandango’s theme song and you acknowledge it, just cheer for the guy, damnit!

C) The Fans at the show for the second half of Raw. With the exception of not saying a damn thing for Kofi Kingston, the fans were en fuego the second half of the show.

Oh yeah, additional worst: Not having most of the cool stuff that happened on Raw occur on the $60 PPV of the year for WWE. Not cool, guys. If I paid to watch last night’s Wrestlemania, I’d feel a little bit ripped off.

They did do a recap ofnZiggler winning the title and gave him a promo. The crowd chanted that they were awesome after they saw how much they affected the announcers and the wrestlers in that match. For the fans to derail a whole segment involving two of the companies biggest faces I think the chant was warranted and won’t hold it against them.

bro, taking cheap shots at TNA for the IMPACT ZONE’s crowd is not cool … even TNA left them and went away ! it’s not TNA’s fault that they didn’t have the money before to do so !! and as soon as they did, THEY WENT ON THE ROAD, BABY !!

TNA is still doing great now ! they got some awesome shit THIS THURSDAY (and every thursday, actully) to watch !

Just got back, and holy shit. Not sure how it translated on TV but the place went absolutely apeshit when Ziggler won. And everyone has heard the stories of the Fandangoing throughout the arena, but my favorite part of that was while I was leaving the parking garage there were probably about a dozen cars BLASTING the Fandango theme and people singing along. What a night, guys.

I came from and just watched RAW on DVR. What you saw on TV wasn’t even half of the fun. We chanted Justin Roberts, Y2J, CM Punk, Austin, Ice Cream Guy, Cotton Candy, We Want Pretzels. And the Fandango song was hummed non-stop during the commercial breaks – and everyone was dancing.

You know, I was fully prepared tonight to write an open apology to Dolph Ziggler for a lackluster run ever since winning Money in the Bank. Thankfully (and surprisingly) the WWE saved me the trouble. Congratulations Nicholas, you deserve it.

I was watching this live until about 9:45 when I had to go be a dad to the kids who couldn’t sleep, and then caught the rest on DVR. Amazing show, well and sensibly booked. Guys like Ryback SHOULD want the title. Just because a guy you’re kind of friendly with has it shouldn’t eliminate you from challenging him. That guy had no problem knocking you out of the Rumble heads up, did he?

And I’m so excited that there are far greater positive reaction for guys like Henry and Ziggler than for stale characters like Orton and Sheamus.

Best crowd I’ve ever been in. Best show I’ve ever been to. What a night. Beat Mania 10000x over. That…that was a moment. Just when I think they’re losing me…they pull this off. Glad to be a part of this night (and can’t wait to read this thread of comments in the morning).

Yup, I live in NY, so was able to make it to both Mania and Raw without needing a flight. The craziest atmosphere I’ve been in. Felt like an ROH-type show, except with 20,000 people. I probably need to sleep on it before making grand proclamations, but Ziggler winning the title was probably my favorite moment I’ve had watching wrestling. I remember after Punk beat Cena at MITB that Brandon talked about Buck O’Neill and Josh Gibson, and seeing the light, and that once you see something great, you always want to relive it. Tonight felt like seeing that light again.

I’m really interested to see if ‘Taker sticks around to work with The Shield. Giving those guys the rub would really help cement them as major players on WWE TV. I know people are hoping for some direction for the Shield individually, and I’m one of them, but I’m just as happy with these three guys continuing to own the major faces, even if they’re booked the same way.

If it weren’t for the Dolph win and this crowd telling WWE what they think of the product this would have been a truly awful RAW. I’m just imagining the horror of next weeks RAW with the standard apathetic crowd.

Talking point:
If you could choose one crowd reaction from tonight to carry over to the regular show, what would it be? Yea, I know what everyone’s answer is, but consider that you could have people not give a shit about Randy Orton, FOREVER.